


how little they did

by healingmirth



Category: American Idiot - Green Day/Armstrong
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 14:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/healingmirth/pseuds/healingmirth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Will would've gotten up to find the remote, but his spot on the couch was empty.  It'd been empty a lot lately.  Tunny had long since given up saving the spot, in favor of not having to hold his head upright.</i>
</p><p>The one where they have largely unexplained (and unexamined, for the boys' part) supernatural powers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how little they did

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from, except that the image in the opening scene appeared in my head as I drove home on Friday. Because clearly tiny fandoms about slackers need AUs where they are magic.

When Tunny opened the door at the top of the basement stairs, pretty much the only thing he could see was that the TV was on. He could only tell that by the dim cone of light that radiated out from it; the volume was on mute, or at least too low for him to register. As he started down the stairs he could hear a slow, steady snapping, and see lighter-sized flames appearing and disappearing, appearing and disappearing, with each click. "Fucking pointless affectation," Will called it, but he wasn't in the room to object. Tunny was pretty sure it helped Johnny to focus, if the slowed rate of singed upholstery was any indication.

"Dude," he said. Johnny nodded hello back and stopped the snapping, leaving a single flame extending from his raised middle finger.  


* * *

  
After they'd sat through the ITT Tech commercial for the fifth time in an hour, or however-the-fuck long they'd been sitting there drinking beer and staring blankly at daytime television, Johnny was stirred to speech.

"Do you ever think about going back to school?" Johnny asked. "To really work on it?"

Tunny shot him a look that he hoped conveyed the appropriate level of _that is a stupid fucking idea_ , but Johnny was still facing the TV. "The only thing more terrifying than a telepath is a well-trained telepath," he said. "So no, I don't."

"Thought it might help," Johnny shrugged, finally glancing over.

"I don't need help," he said, and turned back to the screen in time to watch a grass stain dissolve in a bowl of water.  


* * *

  
There was no telling when Will had manifested; all Tunny knew was that it was in time to save them from their wreck-in-progress of a tree-house becoming less tree- and more lawn- as they stood under it. Flat on his back with no air in his lungs and Will curled over him, all he could do was look up and think _cool_ as the last few bits of debris bounced and sparked off the translucent dome.

Tunny could just about hear his own heart pounding, and when Will thought _Jesus Christ_ , it wasn't clear whether it was a curse or a prayer. After a few seconds and a couple good deep breath, he pushed Will up and off him. They sat side by side on the grass with a ring of splintered lumber around them, as the shield faded away to nothing, or at least to nothing that Tunny could see.

"Fuckin' awesome, right?" Tunny grinned, and bumped his shoulder against Will's. Will mostly looked like he was going to throw up, and his mind was curiously blank.

When they talked about it later, it was easy to guess that whatever Will's deal was, it had kicked in a while before that. Will spent a lot less time absent-mindedly bumping into things, subtly steered to safety like he had invisible skids attached to his body. His shins and forearms were no longer bruise-speckled from collisions with doorknobs and desk chairs.

It was pretty awesome as powers went, and Tunny was willing to trade off the fun of sending spit-balls at the back of Will's head in math class. He was more than a little jealous of Will for having a purely defensive talent, something that would only make people nervous if Will chose to make them nervous. As if he'd decide to start robbing banks or something; no one was wary that Will'd suddenly develop ambition. The main thing he got from Will was a constant quiet worry about keeping Tunny close, like he suddenly wasn't safe anymore unless he was within Will's arm's-reach.  


* * *

  
There was a girl who spent a lot of time by the pay phone near the 7-11, way out of his league, way out of everyone's league, but he liked to watch her when he could get away with it. She had wings: fuckin' gorgeous, glossy wings, feathered purple, and blue, and dark, dark green like no bird that ever landed in his yard. She kept her hair in the highest, longest mohawk he'd ever seen, and wore a lot of black and white - black leggings, white skirt, sometimes a black vest that looked like real leather or white tank tops that made the shimmer of her wings stand out like fireworks. Johnny looked like a zombie waiter in black or white, and Will's clothes seemed to fade to a dull, worn gray before they saw either the sun or a washer. No one Tunny knew was striking the way she was.

"Do you ever wonder what that'd be like?" he asked Will, nodding his chin in her direction. "I wonder if they grew in all at once."

"Terrifying," Will said, but then he smiled with a pure sweetness that always made Tunny want to be close to him. "But can you imagine, being able to fly away?"

* * *

  
Four o'clock Wednesday afternoon, and Tunny was having a hard time thinking of anyone who he wanted advice from less than Dr. Phil. The TV had been on the same channel since at least ten, and he hadn't managed to get up off the couch to find the remote. Johnny had left to get lunch around two-thirty, and never come back. Will would've gotten up to find the remote, but his spot on the couch was empty. It'd been empty a lot lately. Tunny had long since given up saving the spot, in favor of not having to hold his head upright.

For the second segment the show had moved on to a deeply anxious-looking girl and a woman who would have fit right in mothering little girls into freaky beauty queens. It had never stopped being disconcerting to see someone in obvious distress but not have their thoughts echoing in his head, but disconcerting television was better than the alternative of being out in the world with everyone's petty fucking concerns rattling around.

Dr. Phil turned to face the camera. "So I'll just say it: Yes, the verdict is still out on whether _everyone_ has the potential to manifest, and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you believe it's genetic or whether it's granted by a higher power. What you need to believe is that you have to trust yourself."  


* * *

  
Tunny spent most of the next afternoon laid out, face down on Will's bed with a pounding headache that hadn't let up since the start of the fight his parents'd had over breakfast. Will's hand stayed a light, steady pressure at the base of Tunny's skull. He was quiet for the most part, the only disturbances for trips to the fridge, or to piss, or to change the DVD. Sometimes Will's hand on his head felt like the only thing that kept his brain from busting out of his skull and making a run for it.

"I thought for a while that it might be me, too," Will said, just loud enough for Tunny to hear him. "The telepathy thing. Cause that would have been awesome, right? Knowing someone else who manifested the same thing?" The only bright spot in Will's sudden need to talk over the DVD was that his thumb was stroking back and forth against Tunny's hair.

"This sucks," Tunny said. "Trust me, you don't want this."

Will hummed his agreement. "And then I realized it was just you," he said.

"Well, yeah," Tunny said. _Duh._ It wasn't like they hadn't talked about this a million times in high school: the things that sucked, the things that were confusing. The fact that Tunny felt so fucking isolated even when he was never, ever alone, and how Will would let him spend an hour trying to explain even though he never got any better at finding the words. "Obviously, 'cause you've got your shield thing."

"No," Will said. "I mean I can hear you. Just you."

It took a few seconds before it sunk in, what Will was saying, but when it did Tunny sat up too fast and then the room swum before him with the force of it. The only thing he could think was _holy shit_ over and over, stuck between the desire to review every thought Will could have heard over the last twelve years and the knowledge that if he did, Will would more than likely be right there with him. _Jesus, what had he heard._

"Don't think of pink elephants," Tunny said to himself, the oldest trick he knew to derail a train of disordered thought.

"Most of it, now," Will said, with a small, crooked grin. "Unless you think a lot faster than I've been giving you credit for. Used to be pretty spotty, though. And only when you're really close."

 _Batman or Superman_ , Tunny thought, the first thing he could think of that wouldn't have an answer written on his face for Will to read.

"Batman," Will said. "Obviously."

 _Shit_ , Tunny thought.

"Sorry," Will said. "I thought maybe you already knew, that we just weren't talking about it."

Tunny shut his eyes, and then put his hands over his eyes so that at least it was dark again, if not quiet. "I really didn't."

"It was getting worse," Will said, and Tunny also heard the _or maybe better_ overlaid in his thoughts. "I thought maybe we were just spending too much time together, but it's fuckin' boring out there without you, man. So, talking. We don't have to though. You can stay even if we don't."

"Yeah," Tunny said weakly, and then leaned back against the wall. "Good talk."  


* * *

  
When Tunny woke up it was dark, he was still in Will's bed, and his head didn't hurt anymore. The unease swirling in his stomach more than made up for it. Will was next to him, a little too warm where they were touching, breathing slow and even but not asleep. _Good morning?_ he thought, not making any particular effort to hide his thoughts, but mostly because he hadn't tried since the last of the workshop he'd had to attend.

"Not yet." Tunny opened the eye that wasn't blocked by the pillow, and Will was watching him cautiously.

He sighed, and the force of it fluttered Will's hair where it drooped over his forehead. Will made a face at his breath but didn't move away.

_Do you mind?_

Tunny closed his eyes again. Will's thoughts sounded almost like his voice, and not being able to see used to help him imagine that they both had to speak out loud to be heard. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. "It's not like you got a choice," Tunny said. "It's okay." _It's only fair._ Will rolled onto his side and shifted a little closer so that he could rest his hand at the base of Tunny's skull, and Tunny didn't point out that the headache was gone. He drifted back to sleep to the sound of Will humming to himself like a lullaby.  


* * *

  
The next time he woke up, it was light in Will's room and Will was definitely dreaming. The tumble of his thoughts was familiarly incomprehensible and Will had rolled away from him in the night so that he was curled up facing the wall. Tunny tried to be careful just to look, and not to make any observations that would intrude into Will's thoughts. He tried to remember the tricks he'd been taught for blocking his thoughts, picturing a wall, or a stereo dial, or a safe, but they'd all seemed like so much bullshit, and it's not like he had been graded on his work.

"I remember how," Will mumbled into the wall. _Might be easier._ He rolled over so that they were facing each other, displaying his godawful bedhead and the pillow creases cutting across his stubble. Tunny had to suppress the urge to try to smooth out either or both. _Just, before that-_ Will put his hand on Tunny's shoulder and then leaned closer and pressed their lips together. His grip overrode Tunny's instinctive physical recoil, but there was no helping the mental one; Tunny's one unhinged thought was that obviously Will remembered how to shield his thoughts much better than Tunny.

 _Please_ Will thought. _Just try._

Tunny let himself relax into Will's hold on him, and Will changed the angle of his head a little so that their noses weren't quite so squished. The stubble on their chins scratched together when he moved, and Will pulled back a second to lick his lips. When he kissed Tunny again it wasn't much less chaste, but Tunny snapped out of it enough that he could appreciate the effort that Will was making, and that the _please_ was becoming a litany. The uneasy feeling in his stomach was losing its edge and settling in like an ache.

 _I thought you knew,_ Will thought.

 _I really, really didn't,_ Tunny thought back, pleased with the novelty, and happy to not be alone.

**Author's Note:**

> "You wouldnt care so much about what people think about you if you knew how little they did." - Dr. Phil McGraw.


End file.
